A Challenge to Democracy

I thought that the video clip we watched in class today was very weird actually. First off the title makes it sound like citizens are challenging the government and being too needy, whereas in actuality those people just needed to be somewhere safe. The movie was produced by the war relocation authority which probably means that some of the stories or ideas are botched a little bit because the government wants to make it sound like they were good to these people and yet made them work for their keep. The camps were supervised by the war relocation authority and basically these people were living in small dull quarters and only were allowed fourty five cents of food a day. The camps were divided into compartments and the whole place was bounded by a wire fence. So was the war relocation authority trying to keep these people safe, or keep them in? To me it looked scary like they were caged in. Each family had a 20X25 space and did a lot of work around the camps because previously they were good at cultivating desert land. The wages were so low, it was ridiculous, it is so obvious to see that those people werent happy. Half of the people there were previously farmers or as the movie called it "farm folks" and they worked for twelve dollars a month. The children were allowed to attend school and their classes met the education standards. I thought it was very ironic that they were learning about "American History" because they were Japanese and even now in school we learn about more than just America. Some of the men and women worked in the hospitals but always had to be supervised by a white male. When everyone wasnt working or at school they played games such as baseball and some of the residents were artists the residents were also able to celebrate the harvest festival with parade. The movie talked about how there was no restriction on religion which I dont really understand because is there a restriction now that I just dont know about? At the very end of the movie the narrarator says "Relocation centers are not normal, they are not American" "Volunteer workers were the first to leave" "Their labor can help win hte war and pay taxes" and to me none of that seems right. Yes, the relocation camps would be unheard of now (could you imagine what that would be like) and no one should be forced to stay somewhere like that. But what I dont understand is why we used those people. It is what happened, we used them to try and fix our problems and they could not even get the satisfaction of being "American", thats terrible. The Japanese went to war for the country and should have earned more than twelve dollars an hour. I just dont understand why people wanted to come to America when all they were was tested, used and abused for their skills. I think that all the residents of the relocation camps were forced to work, I dont believe at all that the government was honestly going to let them do anything for free. And also I think that some of the men joined the military to get away from the relocation camps because they looked mighty prison like, and I am sure that is what they really were.